IN all ages of the world's history, preaching has been a habit which mankind has loved to cultivate. At the same time, practice, with its host of promises and possibilities, has often been allowed to lie dormant and undeveloped, to be an almost forgotten thing. Preaching has been wont to proclaim from the housetops, as it were, the duties of mortals in behalf of right thinking, right acting, and right living, but it has been surprisingly slow to recognize the requirements and rewards of practice and to combine its so-called forces therewith for the salvation of the nice. Mere preaching is but cold, inanimate profession, while practice— the kind that enthrones the good (and there is no other kind, for good is the only real cause, power, and presence) — is fervid, buoyant, and triumphant action, unconlaminated, unfettered, and alive to the core; it is calm, quiet, and is its own excuse for being.
Preaching is talking; practice is doing. Preaching is the wide and open gate, easy of access and inviting to the crowd, while practice is the straight and narrow way which few elect to tread because of its stern demands for righteous ambition, tenacity of purpose, and indefatigable effort. Contrasted with preaching, practice is so far advance that the former at once discloses its limitation and frailty, while the latter joys in glorious freedom, strength, and dominion, proving by its fruits that demonstration is the only thing worth while, the only criterion by which men and women can be fairly and consistently judged. Preaching often masquerades in borrowed vestments, claiming to be that which it is not, and pointing a path unexplored in its own experience, and hence unidentified with certainty. Practice is genuine in its every part, leading the individual to the place where he may find ample and free exercise for his powers, splendid returns for his ability, diligence, energy, and perseverance, and where he may attain to an understanding quite beyond the congested sphere of mere imagination and theory, in fact quite beyond the embrace of mere words.
The men or women who really do things have relatively little to say about what they have done or can do. from their lips fall no idle, vain, bigoted, or strange utterances. They do not offer much advice; they simply let their light shine. When they are called upon to help destroy the seeming power of evil, they come forth quickly and act fearlessly and ' nobly, thereby proving themselves living exponents of that legitimate and unfailing practice which is the supreme test of understanding. As they thus labor, the beautiful and saving spirit which is the open secret of their success is apprehended and grasped by needy and ready ones, who take and use it for their own enlightenment and relief and who go away rejoicing that demonstrable knowledge is not only sufficient but final.
